Gov. Cuomo’s Medicaid cops finally brought the hammer down on ex-state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr.’s Soundview Health Network, as Post State Editor Fredric U. Dicker reported on Monday that they would.
Soundview will lose its Medicaid license and $10 million in funding — forcing its clinics to close, officials said this week.
It’s a necessary move — the upshot of a series of events that began with several Post stories that exposed Soundview as a publicly funded money pot for Espada & Friends.
Last year, recall, then-AG Cuomo filed a civil lawsuit against Espada, charging him with:
l Looting $14 million from the operation to benefit himself and his son. He even billed Soundview for personal and campaign expenses, including vacations.
l Packing its board with family members and state Senate employees.
l Taking a $2,500 monthly housing allowance from the network for a Bronx co-op — which he claimed as his residence when he was a senator, even though he actually lived in Westchester.
True, thousands of low-income Bronx residents rely on the clinics; shutting them could cause major inconvenience.
And Espada — calling the crackdown “political terrorism” and accusing Cuomo of trying to “pollute the jury pool” for his October federal embezzlement trial — is vowing to sue to keep the clinics open.
Now, if there’s some way to clean house at Soundview — and ensure that all ties to Espada and his cronies are severed — fine.
But one way or another, someone’s got to shut off that cash spigot.
The sooner, the better.